Christmas and our funny kid

Another funny Luke story and a couple of pictures of our day.
Luke is a climber, loves climbing onto anything, chairs, tables, you name it. A current favorite game is to go behind the couch, climb up on my guitar case which is behind the couch, and then flip over onto the couch, get back down and repeat, usually about 5 times. Another fun game which he has invented is "trust fall". He gets up onto our coffee table, extends his hands out to us and wiggles his fingers, USUALLY waits until our hands are extended and then just leans forward so that we'll catch him. Very cute, with only a few scary incidents so far! A couple of times he hasn't waited for me to be ready to catch him, and once when I was on the couch, lying down, he basically just started diving and I caught him from my lying down position. Another time we were at the back door getting ready to leave and he again wanted to play his little trust fall game with me (there's a few stairs there so it makes a good diving spot) but I was in the process of getting my gloves on, so that was a bit of an adventure. So far, no blood, no tears, but we'll see. I would hate for him to learn the hard way that we can't always trust everyone in life...!
And now for a few pictures...
Here's our family Christmas morning portrait...we took two, in the first one both of Julio and Luke's eyes are glowing and they look a bit scary. As do I in this one as I'm still in my pyjamas, but Julio is just modeling his new sweater. For those of you that read one of my earliest entries, the pictures above us are those canvases I wrote about that I finally painted in summer.














Luke opening his stocking... He got a book about Hippos and their belly buttons, as he's just recently discovered his.



















A visit to great-gramma where my parents thought it would be nice for Luke to open a gift in front of her to give her the full experience. They're rewrapping it tonight to give it to him again tomorrow.














My gramma, Luke's great-gramma. I figure my gramma never thought she'd make the internet in her old age so why not prove her wrong. Plus, doesn't she look great?!? I thought it was a nice shot of her. It's funny, my gramma doesn't have the best memory these days, but she always remembers my husband, Juli-A, and sometimes Luke's names, but rarely mine lately...hmm...



















Our little Luke, climbing around...

Corinna, the substitute

Finally, a non-parental thought! Here goes...
I started subbing a little bit this past month, and I have to say, after being out of schools for a while, it's eye-opening going back. I sure hope this doesn't become a "what has our world come to" kind of entry, but it was a bit of that kind of experience for me.
Day 1 - My first half day of subbing was spent replacing the new "me", the person who took over my position at TCI. Her position is slightly different as she does some drama, so my afternoon was a grade 10 French class and then a grade 9 Drama class. It was great to go, after having spent the morning in my pyjamas until 10am, for just the afternoon, chat a bit in the staff room with former colleagues and see some of my former students as well, all grown up and smart looking. That was a definite highlight, seeing my former students...they were all just smiling as big as ever and were so glad to see me and seemed so smart and full of potential. I have to admit, being the high school basic French teacher you do get the cream of the crop, as it's an elective and usually only the ones that want to be there are. So most of my former students are truly lovely and were a ton of fun to teach. So there I am, feeling on top of the world, students love me, staff loves me, how great is this going to be?!? Ah yes, that lovely, ignorant arrogance of the moments before actual substitute teaching begins. How quickly that feeling faded! Actually, the first class was quite nice, but when I told them to go pick out magazines to read for the first few minutes of class, one girl said to me, boy, you have a quiet voice! Teacher voice, right! I forgot! Thankfully I had this class first because boy did I need teacher voice for the next class. The French class went well, nice kids, not too many cell phones or head phones that I saw and not an insane amount of noise, so all in all, a decent class. The next class however, was grade 9 drama. Now technically this class is an elective but all grade 9s have to take a certain number of electives and a lot of them just need to fill up a timetable, so let me tell you, they were not all there to be enthusiastically playing drama games. Which they were supposed to be doing for 70 minutes. Lovely. For starters, the school doesn't have enough space in their building so the class takes place in an adjacent school in a massive room with risers, a few chairs, and lots of room to roam. Taking attendance was an adventure in and of itself. Kids cannot be quiet for more than 10 seconds in an environment like that it turns out. Anyway, we got through that and all the other activities I was supposed to do, but not without a couple of ipod confiscations and one cell phone confiscation and threats of more. But the main thing that got me that day was these girls...dressing so provocatively, acting crass and saying things I wouldn't have dreamed of ever saying out loud. I had just finished reading the book "The Cross and the Switchblade", an old autobiography of David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge. I was so glad I had just read that, because instead of seeing obnoxious, inappropriate girls, I really saw a lot of brokenness and kids just not knowing how to cope with life and the culture that's been thrown at them. I prayed for as many kids as I could remember names of for several days after that, and by God's grace I hope some of those girls find some more self respect before it's too late.
Day 2 - half day, morning, doing Guitar, grade 10 and 11. Not much to say here, except that never have I loved long-haired, band-loving, rocker-type boys so much. As geekish and out of touch with today's lingo as I may sound, they were the best, so into practicing. You could see a real love for guitar, or maybe they were just imagining themselves being rich and famous and idolized by teenaged girls everywhere someday when they make it big. Regardless, that day I loved them. I did not, however, love the cute girls who were just there to look at the boys or (yes this happened!) show them their blue panties. Again, what's going on with these girls?!?! Please, Hollywood, find some self-respecting women out there that stay that way for some duration of time so that these girls at LEAST have that to compare themselves to. I don't know what the answer is, but again, I was shocked by their clothes, their attitude, their crassness...unbelievable. There was this one girl, though, who sat for almost the whole period with another girl and just strummed away on her guitar, so I know there's hope. Mostly, however, the morning was an exercise in boredom, and how to pretend to not look bored in front of 20 kids at a time. Wow, fascinating poster of a trumpet, must of stared at that for at least 5 minutes. The next time I brought a book.
Day 3 - Full day Math subbing. Pretty good day on the whole, major thought from that day was, if Luke grows up to be one of these boys, which one would he be?!? I was hoping for many examples of intelligent looking, witty, interesting young men eager to take on the world. I found a lot of ipods. It turns out girls chat, guys listen to music. Not many gleaming examples of male teenage greatness, but there was one grade 12 IB English class that I subbed for that day as well which had one example of the kind of boy I was looking for. One in about 100 faces I saw that day...do I really like those odds?!?! Lord have mercy!!!
All in all, the subbing world is definitely interesting and I pray that in some strange way God will be able to use me with these kids. It's so tough when I know exactly how kids view subs...low life teachers who can't get a real job and aren't the real deal so they don't really deserve respect. With all that being said, I still know that teaching is in me and there were parts of each day that I did really love, something about seeing kids on the brink of making future life decisions and feeling like they really can do something important in the world that makes me hope that they will, and that maybe somehow I will too.

Bob

I've been wanting to write about a couple of cute things Luke's been up to lately but haven't managed it, so I think there may be a bit of a boost in blog entries...if I can manage it now! Here's one funny moment I had to share...
For the past forever I've been trying to get Luke to say "mom". His favorite word by far is "dad", I hear it all day long, it's cute, it's great, I'm so glad he loves his dad, loves to pretend to call him and say "hi dad" as clear as day, but really, with all the hours I put in, a little bit of "mom" vocabulary would be nice!! So anyway, yesterday morning he wakes up in his usual chipper and chatty mood, and starts blabbing away, going up to Julio and saying "hi dad", "dad, da, dad" etc etc. So then after a stream of lovely dad conversation we try to get him to say "mom". We say "where's mom" and he looks at me and it's all very nice, but of course we're still hoping he'll SAY it! Julio is becoming almost as preoccupied with this as I am, mostly to get me to shut up about it probably. Anyway, finally I say to him, Luke, I'm Mom! And he says "Bob". And I say "Mom". And he says "Bob Bob Bob". We laughed quite a lot which I think just encouraged him because he just kept smiling and calling me Bob. I can just picture kindergarten, walking into class and the teacher asks him, "who's in your family?" and he replies "dad and Bob!" Lovely.
Well, I must admit, after all those Bob shenanigans, I got the best Christmas present EVER this morning. Luke called me mom about 5 times in a row, clear as a bell. So, I think I'll forgive this little "Bob" episode and just store it away as one of those great toddler memories...

Proud moment

The other day, Julio and I were chatting and happened to look over to see what Luke was doing. Well, to our amazement, he was building a tower out of his MEGA blocks. This may not seem like a big deal to the average person, but I had never seen him put more than two blocks together before this point. So, Julio and I spent the next 20 minutes or so watching our little architect at work...the tower would grow, almost topple, Luke would steady it (as I tried to refrain myself from helping!), and if it fell, he would laugh, sometimes even clap and start all over again. We got it on video, which I will try to post here but sadly, my last attempt wasn't so successful so I won't count on it working! At the very least, I'll post a picture of the final attempt, the one where he managed to get every one of his MEGA blocks (granted, he doesn't have many!) into his tower. Amazing! (to us at least:)

Fall

This fall has zoomed by, bringing with it a blur of different occurrences and emotions. Luke is forever entertaining us with how he views life and explores it, and so I must include some pictures and stories of course of that. I know that I write and talk a lot of Luke, but he is my full-time job and so I'm not going to apologize for it! Watching a little person explore and develop is quite a marvel and to all of you childless ones that can't understand how amazing it is to hear your kid say something that has meaning for the first time, or climb to unimaginable 2 foot heights, or run circles around the kitchen island, I do apologize (oops!) for what seems a little mundane, but it truly is incredible to me. So here you go, a glimpse into the current version of Luke.
First of all...walking has gone from taking a few steps to running, although he often has more momentum than balance and ends up on his butt, but for the most part he is now an upright creature. He seems so much more grown up now, like a real little boy, and whenever I hear people refer to him as a baby I feel like they must be talking about someone else. He is no longer a baby to me. I actually love it, I love seeming him cruise around and explore, like last night when we went to the mall for Halloween with his friend Liam, and when we put him down to walk, he seemed to embrace the experience to the fullest, running in every direction without a care in the world. My favorite moment of the evening must of been when he heard some techno music in a shoe store and had to just stand in the entrance to listen...at first just standing there, then swaying from side to side, and then eventually practicing his newly acquired talent of a twirl...if you can call it that. It's more like a slow motion turn, very deliberate, but enough to make him dizzy if he does enough of them. Eventually I had to drag him away, but it was far too entertaining.
Then there's talking...favorite words "Hi Dad" said many times a day, the odd "Mom", "beep beep" when we touch his nose or he touches ours (more like "bop bop" however), and many little monologues where he looks very intent, and we're sure that what he's saying has important meaning, but we haven't quite bridged the meaning gap yet. Sadly, however, in this past week, the boy has learned a new word. We're not sure where, we're thinking of interrogating his little friends' parents, or perhaps the grandparents that babysit him, but the new word of the week is F***. Yes, it's true, it's THE f word, out of our little, 14 month old boy's mouth. The first time it happened we laughed fairly hysterically which was probably our first mistake. The other day my mom was over and he looked at her straight in the eye and said "f***". Luckily my mom took it in stride and just said, well, it's better for him to get it out of his system now! True enough! Still not quite sure what to do about it though...
There's more that could be said, but for now I'll leave you with these pictures.
































The other happening in our life is that we had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. I don't know what to say about it, and have had trouble even knowing how to process all of this myself, but I will say that we're doing alright and that, if anything, it's helped us appreciate our little guy so much more and life in general. And, as crazy as it sounds, I feel like I'm more able to trust God now with my life and with the lives of my loved ones than ever before. So maybe I'll just leave it at that. We do talk about having a dozen kids though now...someone please stop us if we get too out of control!
So that's been our fall. Along with a few trips to the park, walks to the store, time spent with friends and family, a birthday basement work day, many nights of reading, and trying to crunch as many leaves as possible before the snow falls. Which it has now, so I suppose it's time to embrace this next season...

funny picture

I just had to post this picture, this was such a funny moment. Both Julio and I were home, and Luke and his friend Liam decided it was climbing time. Luke got up there completely on his own, with much encouragement from his dad! I'm sure we'll regret encouraging this kind of stuff someday, but for now, we just think it's way too fun.

Socks and other (mis)adventures

It's a funny thing, watching you kid try to do something you know they won't in a million years be able to accomplish. Like putting on socks, for example. Today I was watching Luke trying to put on his socks after he had just pulled them off, and as he sat there and dangled the hole of the sock over his toes, and sometimes managed to get one little toe in only to have it bob off again, I thought, is this cruel of me to just sit here and let him fail? But then I had to laugh as he just giggled while trying and eventually just abandoned the project. I love how he handles failure, it's awesome.
And then there's dirt. Julio was working outside the other day, putting dirt all around our house and so Luke and I decided to go out and "help". Luke had a blast. He just giggled and crawled around on each new pile of dirt Julio laid down, and eventually just had to have a taste...here, see for yourselves...




And then there's walking...our boy has now successfully taken 23 steps, but mostly he thinks walking is one big joke. He'll only do it when we prop him up and get him to walk in between us and then it's usually walk walk walk...dive! (and we usually get a good squeezer hug out of it!). But he eagerly turns around again and keeps going, until something more fascinating captures his attention. Mostly his crawling is just so incredibly fast that I don't know why he'd ever be motivated to walk. But I now do find myself urging him to walk, even though I always thought I'd be so low-key about it, if he didn't walk right away. Especially knowing that he can do it! Of well, you can't rush these things I suppose.
So, there you are, an update on our little Luke. Did I mention he's going to be a big brother in April?!?

Boy in a Box

Luke loves boxes. Ever since he has been mobile, boxes have been an awesome toy for him. Just today, I was busy doing something and I looked over to find that he had flipped over a big storage box, pushed it toward the door, and was sitting on it, looking out our screen window. And often we'll find him contentedly playing in one of his little toy boxes while rummaging through another. And then there's the odd moment where he lets someone else join in... So here's a glimpse of our boy in (or on!) a box.

Luke's First Birthday

After two parties, many cupcakes, some presents and several doting cousins, our Luke is officially one year old. It sure is nice to be on this side of it all!
Luke's first party was an impromptu affair on the August long weekend with his birthday twin, (a friend from the lake who was born an hour or so before him!), at my parents' cabin with deep 'n delicious cakes and two cute and messy boys. It was so fun to be able to celebrate with Asher (his twin) and our other lake friends. I still marvel that they are truly only hours apart, and yet such different kids! Asher plunged into the cake with gusto and Luke just kind of dabbed his fingers in the icing and seemed grossed out by the stickiness. The cake on his face is only due to the fact that we forced him to eat it. How ridiculous!














The second party was the planned family event that happened on Monday. The weather was gorgeous and so all my (slightly uncharacteristicly thorough) house cleaning gets to be preserved because we were able to do the whole thing outside. Thank goodness. With 14 adults and 10 kids, our house would have felt too full too fast. It was a fairly predictable one-year-old party I'd say, with Luke being relatively oblivious to the presents, looking like a deer in headlights when we sang to him, not having a clue what this candle is all about and why we wanted him to blow it out, and playing with his cupcake like it was play-doh. A perfectly successful party, I'd say! Actually, he was smiling most of the night, mostly due to all his doting cousins that absolutely amaze him. And after it all, Luke wasn't ready to go to bed right away so he happily played with his new toys for a bit before it was time to say good night, and first thing this morning he was right back at it.

(This is Luke with his cousin Eli.)

Our weekend getaway

We just got back from a fun weekend with another couple and I thought I would share some highlights...
The big excitement for us was the opportunity to go fishing! I haven't fished since I was a kid and it has been about 5 years for Julio, so it was quite fun. What made it all the more fun was having a child-free hour and a half, as our friend, Shonet, graciously looked after our little Luke for us. By some miracle she even got him to go to sleep! So, sadly there are no pictures of Luke and Shonet's fun time, but here are some of ours...















And then there were the games...I bought a new game the day before we left for the lake and it was a big hit. We played it at least every day if not a couple of times a day. It's called Bohnanza and is a card game about planting and harvesting beans. Quite fun actually!!



















We went for a hike on Sunday morning to a little lake about 20 minutes away. We did the Mantario trial with this couple and another one a few years ago and this felt like an abridged version of that hike :) (Quite abridged!!) Luke took a good nap on the way down as you can see. It was a lovely spot to hike to.




















So, here's a glimpse into our vacation-in-a-weekend!

Our summer thus far...

It's been a while since my last post and with just cause. These past few weeks have been a blur of sickness, heat, and a thirsty garden. So let me recap a little on what's been going on at our house...
First of all, we all got varying degrees of a nasty flu bug that has been going around. Luke had it the worst, and there were many days when we thought he might be an only child. A sick kid is just not fun, let's face it! Not to mention feeling absolutely terrible for him, knowing that he feels rotten and doesn't know what to do about it. And it's hard to know how serious to take things when they're so little and can't talk. But I'm extremely happy to report that our giggly little boy is back and life is much more smiley around our house. This week he has been an entirely different boy, and I'm loving the change. I think he's making up for lost time too, because he keeps getting into these crazy giggle fits where I keep wondering what's so funny but just have to join in. It's been great. Along with his new-found energy has come some new determination!! He climbed up on the couch this evening all by himself, while grabbing onto his Nannie for support. So cute and so scary! I'm afraid we have a climber on our hands. But of course, as much as I don't really love the idea of him climbing all over high objects, I have to sit back and marvel at how smart he is and am secretly egging him on in my mind. It's just so cool to watch him conquer these things.
But enough gushing and onto more news. Luke's cousins are back in town, the North Carolinan variety. My sister and husband were in the States for a year and it's been great to have them back, for my sake and Luke's! They have sure loved him up and he has loved them right back. So here's a few snapshots of some good cousin moments.



And then there's the garden...for our first year at it, I think we've had our work cut out for us. Never before have I ever wanted it to rain SO BADLY as I do this year! Hauling water to our garden is quite the procedure, and it never seems to be enough. But I must say, the garden has been amazing in some respects. I have never thought so much about the miracle of plant growth. From a tiny seed, some dirt, sun and water, FOOD grows. That's amazing. And I can't credit that to anything I do. The growth of the plants, even though I play a part in watering and weeding, is a complete miracle. And it has made me think, when Jesus was talking about the parable of the sower, how many of the people listening went back to their gardens, or farms, or whatever afterwards and just mulled these things over? It's incredible to think that Jesus used parables that people would be forced to think about every day, because they probably dealt with farming ever day. I have thought about how Jesus said the Father would prune those plants which did not bare fruit, and as I pruned our tomato plants the other day, I prayed that I would bear fruit and not be pruned. And on another occasion, our tomatoes were looking sickly for lack of water and I just felt so sad. And I thought about how my role is to water, and God will do the rest, and I have such an easy part to play so why don't I do it so I can sit back and watch the miracle of growth before my eyes? And more importantly, am I watering the relationships with people in my life, especially with those who don't know the wonder of the Father? My role is so easy, I just need to play my little part and God will surely do the rest, He always does. And then there are the weeds. Especially when our little plants were smaller, it was so important to not let the weeds get too big or else they would choke out what we really want to see grow. But again, do I make sure to get the bad stuff out of my life so the good things can grow? Because once there is more good than bad, the bad doesn't stand a chance. I've seen it. We hardly have to weed anymore because our plants are so big and hearty now. So even though it may be tempting to ask if it's worth it, after shelling what feels like a million pods and seeing only a tiny bowlful of peas, or picking a ton of beans and spending what feels like hours cutting and blanching them, or wondering what to do with yet another zucchini, I thank God for our little garden and the lessons I've learned. And that's why when Julio asked if we should buy a bunch of half priced seeds for next year I eagerly agreed. There is just something wonderful about having a garden.


(This is Luke helping Julio with our beans.)

And now for a few pictures...

Luke cleaning the bathtub with his dad...














Reading stories with cousin Claire and amazing Tante Folle, I mean, Auntie Robyn.














Eating rollkuchen for the first time














Playing catch with Nannie














Gardening














And a couple of other recent favorites...

Not what I thought

A friend of mine told me years ago that parenting wasn't what she thought it would be. She said that no one can really prepare you for what it will be like, and that it is harder than you can imagine. I have to agree these days. I think it's the all-the-timeness of it that makes it hard at times. Luke has had a cold for several weeks and has been waking more frequently at night, wanting to nurse more, etc, and it has been a bit draining. But the wonder of parenting is that in all of these moments, I wouldn't trade it for a childless life ever. Love is a funny thing. I love Luke so much that I think about him most of the time and can become obsessed with his "success" at each stage of his life. And I worry if he's not "succeeding" and I'm elated when he does. I'll explain. For example, I decided about a week ago that it was time that he mastered the sippy cup. We're starting to give him a bit of milk and I've had people tell me not to give him a bottle, but to go straight to a sippy cup (to avoid "double-weaning"). So I spent several days giving him the sippy cup, without the valve, with the valve, without the valve, with the valve, so he would understand that stuff comes out of the spout. Well, for several days he didn't suck on it when the valve was in, and it was stressing me out! I thought, oh no, he'll never learn this! And then one day, he just started sucking on it and it worked and now he can use it just fine. So much stress for nothing. But I tell you, sippy cups had never been so much on my mind then for those few days! And now it's eating...he's decided that all he likes is quesadillas. I'm thinking that it's because we had a guy from Mexico stay with us for a couple of weeks and it had a profound effect on him. I'm not sure. Sounds funny, maybe, but it's been a bit stressful! He doesn't want to be spoonfed, he doesn't want to eat any vegetables and he's just figured out in the last couple of weeks that if he doesn't like food, he can actually spit it out. So, my life has become one quesadilla-filled culinary adventure. Luke has now had, not only cheese quesadillas, but also rice, peas, chicken, yogurt and cheese quesadillas and the latest, squash and cheese quesadillas. Julio and I both thought the squash quesadillas weren't that bad actually...
So I guess one of the reasons why parenting is hard is because you don't want to mess up and you don't want to mess your kid up. And you don't know what to make a big deal of and what to relax about. But here are a couple of things I'm learning about Luke: forcing him to do things is not highly effective. If he doesn't want to eat, he won't. When he's hungry, he will indeed eat, even if it is only quesadillas. Another thing: "no," to him, is probably the funniest word out there. He giggles immediately almost whenever I say it. And it makes whatever he's doing all that much more enjoyable. I haven't quite figured out the answer to this conundrum but today, when he was reaching for the lamp and I said no, his giggle and smile were so cute that I had to laugh for a while too.
All the stress and parenting disillusionment aside, Luke is a great kid. Tonight Julio and I watched him for about 20 minutes just play with a pen as he was "writing" on paper and babbling away. It was amazing. I can't get over how smart he is, how curious and independent he is, how he finds humour in things that I can only wonder at, and how somehow by the grace of God, I get to be this amazing kid's mother.

The latest on Luke

Luke has had a busy past couple of weeks! He has really gotten going in terms of crawling, climbing, standing, getting stuck in tight places, maneuvering over and under things, etc, etc. It’s so fun to watch, I’m just so continually impressed with his curiosity and drive to try new things. Today we were at a play group with a couple of other moms and their kids, and I was all of a sudden struck by the realization that he's a KID now! He's chasing the other kids, pulling hair, eating paper...he's one of them! I can truly say that I am enjoying this phase of his life. The trick now is to savour it and not wish it away...I'm not sure why we do it, but so often we think and dream and plan of the next stage of our lives instead of savouring the one we're in. So here's a few snapshots of Luke's latest endeavors...swimming lessons with dad, going to the zoo with Belen, and then swimming at the lake this past weekend. He was really into the beach and water this past weekend, it was great! I'm looking forward to being there a lot this summer and seeing him become more and more of a beach bum...